Linked In?

I joined Linkedin this week. For months I’ve received invitation to join, mostly from people I didn’t know. I think they simply invited everyone on their email address list. A couple of invitation came from people I did know, but when I asked them what the advantage was, they weren’t sure.

Now that I’ve joined Linkedin, I’m not sure either. There are some people who belong that I haven’t “talked” to for a long time. I was glad to “link up” with them. And those who fill in the information have interesting pages. However, what I’ve discovered so far is many of the people I’m “linked with” don’t have anything showing other than very basic information.

One of the reasons I joined this time was the invitation came from a friend/writer I know fairly well. She doesn’t normally join all of these social groups and is so well known, she really doesn’t need to join in order to sell books. I figured if she joined, maybe I should, too.

Also I recently looked at the web site of an agent, and one of the things the agent wants in a query letter (sent via e-mail) is what social groups the writer belongs to, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. (There were a couple others on the agent’s list that I hadn’t heard of before. Guess I’ll have to look into those.) Since I’m nearing completion of the story I’ve been working on for over a year and would love to get an agent to handle it, I decided I’d better make sure I could show I belonged to at least some of the required social networks.

The problem is, as I see it, how can a writer ever find the time to write and also keep up with all these social networks? And what do you say? I’m certainly not going to start posting what I do every day. (Got up, had coffee, fed the dog, had more coffee, walked the dog, etc.) And when I’m working on a story, I don’t like to “talk” about it. Which means I’m usually either commenting on others’ postings (which I enjoy doing) or posting some sort of promotion (which can be a turn off if done too often).

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9 Responses to Linked In?

Good Question: I’ve been busy for 3 month trying to create a web page and indie publish my 3rd book in a series. I have had no time to write and I don’t like it. I know all this social net working stuff is supposed to help sales. John Locke who wrote the ebook How I Sold 1 Million ebooks in 5 months (best $5 I’ve ever spent) Blogs and Tweets, but only blogs about once a month. Some good advice in here, pick what works for you. Good luck with you WIP. Judy L. Tayor writing the Cindy Nesbit series as J. Lee Taylor

Link In and other social networks is something I have been putting off until I finish my book. Everyone I know has them already. (Whether their book is finished or not) I know I need to. It just makes no sense to this before my work is finished.

It’s on my “things to do list”, but not until I finish my book. It kind of irritates me that authors have to do all this “pimping” of their work on their own, because what do we pay an agent for? Isn’t that supposed to be their job?

Self-pub authors I understand the necessity.

Link In is very aggressive in presuming people to become members. I get at least two e-mails from them a week. I’ve even spammed them and they still find a way to my e-mails. What is the benefit of being in Link In? It’s a network of professionals, but so what? Who looks at it? Will it get me a contract? Do agents solicit writers there? I doubt it. I just wonder if it’s necessary.

Having said that, once my book is done, you’ll see me there, because seems to be the place to be for whatever reasons I don’t understand.

You didn’t ask me. I could have told you of its advantage. 🙂 Actually, as a creative writer, your need to be LinkedIn is lightweight unless you want to use it to get linked to editors, agents, and publishers and develop those relationships; you want them to see your resume, your body of work. I need LinkedIn as an academic professional, although the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is a far better tool for me than LinkedIn. Facebook is about casual connections. LinkedIn is about job seeking or finding. That’s how I differentiate between them. We’re linked regardless; and, we didn’t need a social network.

I, too, joined LinkedIn (thanks to your invite, Maris) and like you I’m not so sure about the benefit. It looks like it’s for professionals in various industries and but not necessarily for writers. Maybe if I’m there long enough I’ll see how to use it better. Thanks for the post. I feel like I’m not alone.

So many social networks, such a learning curve for someone like me. I’ll be tuned in to your reports on what value you find in it. Congrats on getting toward the end of your next book, too!
All the best, Annette

Good question, Maris. How do writers keep up with all the social networking? I’m not even published and doing it! But, I don’t let it interfere with my writing time. If I don’t write then I have nothing to FB, tweet, or talk about on my blog, lol.
Great post!

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